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I doubt it has anything to do with the battery, pagers typically use the far more stable (and less energy dense) NiMH composition over a typical lithium one.

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It's probably much easier these days to source lithium batteries than NiMH ones.

Most pagers also aren’t designed incinerate/explode when they receive a signal, so I don’t know if we can make assumptions based on what typical pagers do. Seems a lot easier to short a LiPo battery than conceal a tiny explosive. An explosive can be found, but they’re unlikely to find out that the BMS is bugged to short the battery to ground

A LiPo will burn, aggressively and hot, but they don't explode.

To get a LiPo to explode you'd need to both puncture/rupture it and somehow contain the escaping gasses long enough to build up pressure.

No, I'm as convinced as I can be that this was a supply-chain attack, and used a purpose-built "addition" the pagers in the form of an explosively formed penetrator.

Given that an EFP is usually concave, I'll even go so far as to say I bet it was disguised as part of the speaker assembly.

LiPos used today burn because they have vent slits. Remove the vents and it’s far more likely to explode. In any case, we’ll probably find out in a couple weeks.

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